Microsoft Banning Halo: ODST Pirates

[Marcus Yam]

Microsoft is cracking down on Halo downloaders.

Microsoft Banning Halo: ODST Pirates : Read more

 

[Jerky_san]

Perhaps it was purposely leaked to get the ban hammer struck on everyone who pirates it.. Perhaps it has a special identity key or something..

 

[magicandy]

"Microsoft has apparently found a way to differentiate between those who bought a legitimate copy early (from a retailer who did not adhere to street date) and those who downloaded a copy of the game illegally"

The only way they could possibly do this is through un-checked, un-verified images, meaning only those pirates dumb enough not to open up abgx and run the ISO/DVD though it are going to get banned. I really don't care about Halo at all being a PC gamer but they haven't found a way aside from the method they were already using; relying on the carelessness of the pirate.

 

[tayb]

Ban their consoles.

 

[magicandy]

Oh, and to clarify since not everyone knows what a verified image is: there is no difference whatsoever between a checked and verified/fixed image and a legitimate copy, software wise. The only way to tell would be to actually see the physical disc being used. 360 pirates that don't check their images get banned all the time, this is nothing new. He's just sensationalizing thing in his Twitter by making note of something MS has been doing all along, regardless of which game.

 

[Major7up]

Why am I not surprised? And won't the offending parties just find some way around being banned?

 

[ssalim]

Those who illegally download -and- play online should be punished. I only do one of the above.

 

[ColMirage]

"I spy with my little eye" Someone's been playing TF2

 

[hellwig]

I can be clear however that this applies to illegitimate copies only, the ban covers the Xbox Live account and could possibly include their console...

Woah, wait, what? Does this mean ban the console from XBox Live, or ban people from their XBox? The latter seems not-to legal to me.

Why wouldn't Microsoft ban any modded XBox they detected? Sounds like unauthorized network access to me, and they have a right to defend said network from "attack".

 

[Supertrek32]

I'd assume (new games at least) have a UID attached to them that is somehow associated with the profile (through achievements, perhaps).

[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom]Woah, wait, what? Does this mean ban the console from XBox Live, or ban people from their XBox? The latter seems not-to legal to me. Why wouldn't Microsoft ban any modded XBox they detected? Sounds like unauthorized network access to me, and they have a right to defend said network from "attack".[/citation]
Ban the console from Live - they'd have to purchase a new console, not just a new gamertag, if they want to play on Live again. And people who have modded Xboxes might have bought it used. The firmware hacks to play game backups (which also lends itself to piracy) are undetectable to the user.

 

[rooket]

Well it is an iso of the French version of the game, maybe assuming that France doesn't leak games early works well though.. it is a rather small country anyways. plus I saw the iso but haven't burned it and if I got banned from live well I only have silver anyway and my xbox is one that tends to get the RROD problem so it'd probably be a blessing to go out and buy another one. I don't think Microsoft really understands that I don't really care what they do to the console's ability to connect to their paid services.

 

[eddieroolz]

Time for more "Hitler gets banned from Xbox Live" episodes!

 

[Ciuy]

bla bla bla garbage

 

[surfer1337dude]

hmm, interesting.

My guess for how to tell which copies are legal and which are pirated, if there is a way the xbox can be told to a) do a self check (without the player knowing it) and b) be told to check the game files.

But it is interesting to know that they can tell the difference.

 

[Honis]

Until I get an article about hundreds of pirates being banned, this may as well be a smoke screen to discourage people who can but haven't pirated it yet.

Also, what are they permabanning? Just the game? The hacked Xbox 360? Access to Xbox Live? Microsoft could bring the hammer on anyone assuming they can actually detect it.

 

[wongster]

hate twitter

 

[dingumf]

And the smart pirates live to play ODST another day BY NOT CONNECTING TO XBOX LIVE

 

[anamaniac]

Multiplayer on pirated copies is the best. ^_^

Don't have a modded 360 myself, but I've played a handful of online games via pirated versions.
For the Xbox 360 anyways, there's private networks you can connect to instead of of the official LIVE and play your games... many have,

 

[timbozero]

Microsoft don't really need any 'clever' copy detection for this. The game was only leaked in France and in French. Not from France , guess what , you have to be playing a copy and are ban-able. It's not really rocket-science is it.

 

[timbozero]

Additional , in response to dingumf , playing offline won't protect you from the 'ban hammer' as the console saves your play date internally and uplinks it (with your saves) at your next login for statistical reasons (you could tweak your console time/date though).

As for the suggestion of anamaniac , playing on private servers is problematic at best , the console has 2 levels of 'security to stop online play. The live service hasn't been hacked so that it can be duplicated yet and to play multiplay 'lan-play' they have set a maximum ping between clients to stop tunneling apps like Kai and XBC working over anything but very short distances